Thorp - my friend is an engineer for Panasonic, and he is extremely confident about the quality of their plasmas. It seems that everybody who works there is very high on them, and feels no need to own a different brand at home. They've found a work-around so that burn-in is no longer an issue, unlike most plasmas. Who knows, maybe the engineers at Phillips and LG feel the same way about their own products, but in this case, I was impressed by the confidence level. It factored into my decision to get a Panasonic tv (even though mine ended up not being plasma).